A Hero's Mantle
by Alien Predator
Summary: This tale follows the life of Buttercup's teenage daughter as she comes to accept her heritage and decides to follow in her mother's footsteps. A week after secretly beginning her crime fighting without mom knowing, strange happenings begin to haunt Townsville and it's up to the new hero and her cousins to find out just what's going on and put an end to it before things escalate.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

My eyelids slid open on their own accord, they did tend to gain a sense of self awareness whenever I had a good night's sleep and just bloom open without warning.

That was such a good feeling for me which meant that I rose along with my mood towards happiness and appreciation instead of the usual under-appreciation of existence.

I hovered above ground and headed towards the window, my toes pointed at the floor but never touched it.

I looked outside at Townsville where the ginormous skyscrapers stood tall and proud and some pierced the clouds in everlasting defiance of the Earth's gravity. These were times when I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride at human civilisation and its achievements and continuing progress.

My phone alarm suddenly took me out of my wonderment of society and diverted my attention towards its rectangular form.

I reached for it, my wonder suddenly returned as I turned off the alarm and stared at the small, slim rectangle in my hand as the screen turned off by itself.

This little device served as a hub for all information at my fingertips, it was a nexus of communication across the world provided that I had the right combinations of numbers. It was also an alarm clock and a gaming device...

How cool is that?

And a mirror too as I noticed my big green eyes staring back at me, I didn't realise that I was smiling at my phone.

Wow...

I put it down and hovered to the toilet to get my face washed and relieve myself of the night's buildup in my bladder.

It wasn't long until I got myself dressed for school. I had decided to wear a bright green tank top, some blue jeans and a pair of black and white sneakers.

I tended to wear green because that was the signature colour of my mother, the toughest of her sisters.

And there she was as I hovered into the kitchen and let my feet finally plant themselves gently onto the ground without a noise.

"Good morning, Betty," she greeted me. No matter how quietly I landed, even the most minute of subtle noises betrayed my presence; such are the wonders of super hearing.

I had the same powers as my mother, but my powers were weaker due to my diluted blood as a result of having a human father.

"Good morning, Mom," I responded and she turned to face me with a smile. In her hands she held my plate, her fingers being ever so gentle as if holding an object made out of foam. I fully understood her tenderness with the fragile plate because I used to accidentally rip doors entirely off of their hinges as a young child.

"You're up early, sweetheart," she said as she set my food down on the dinner table which was covered by a green sheet that had little yellow flower patterns on it that resembled buttercups. My mom told me that it was something that my father bought when they were together as he thought that it had reminded him of her.

"I had a good night's sleep," I said. I admit that these kinds of nights are super rare, no pun intended.

I fought a smirk away from forming on my face at my goofy 'super' joke. I didn't want this to be one of those random awkward moments where I am cracking myself up over something funny and others raising eyebrows in response to my stubborn and unwavering smile.

"That's good," my mom said with approval and returned to sorting something out at the sink while I plopped myself down on the seat.

"I'm going to be working a little longer today as there have been some rises in crime lately. You get straight home from school, okay sweetheart?"

"Okay, mom."

I began to eat my breakfast which was composed of those delicious pancakes that only my mother knew how to make and nobody else. I have tried many pancakes of all types made by a variety of people and no one made them as good as Buttercup.

I felt a hand gently touch my raven pixie cut hair and fingers therapeutically massaged my scalp before mom planted a kiss on top of my head and said her farewells, but not before once again reiterating to me that I must get straight home immediately after school finishes.

I finished my breakfast and then grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulders as I left the house, closing the door and locking it before turning around and feeling the wind blow through my short black hair.

I hovered above the ground and then flew up into the skies. The city of Townsville once again stood majestically ahead of me, beautiful in its size and flaunting in its pride. I shot towards it and stretched my arms out in front of me with hands clenched into fists and flying directly into the city's concrete embrace.

I couldn't help but grin as I zipped across the suburbs, the houses would normally be a blur but my brain can process information usurped from the environment by all five of my senses at super speed and slow everything down to a normal pace, or even slower if I so wished for it. I could see every house, every brick, every window, every blade of grass on every garden and every face with every movement on it within my view as if walking at a slow pace.

Then I let go of that concentration and all of it became a blur which just buzzed past me, completely incoherent to my mind. When I was a young kid, I used to scream in joy while flying at super speed. I learned not to do it at the top of my lungs though because windows used to shatter at the sheer volume and mom wasn't happy with that.

I outgrew the screaming at the age of ten however and was pretty much a flying brick. The loudest noise I make now is a sonic boom as I break the sound barrier.

It only took me three minutes to cover the entire suburbs and half of Townsville's magnificent skylines before I landed myself in front of Townsville High School.

I looked at the students and watched them dutifully go in while others still loitered outside without a care in the world.

There were a pair of guys sitting at a bench nearby, they were playing chess. I knew them as they went to my class. One was from another country and quite skinny while the other one was from England and had some meat on him. They both had milkshake cocktails of vanilla ice cream and chocolate as my sense of smell told me.

The skinny one began to drink through the two chocolate clogged straws protruding from his cup, he was sucking through those straws like it was going out of fashion; and I could only imagine his veins and arteries getting similarly clogged like that straw and then the heart showing the same enthusiasm as he does in furiously pumping milkshake-laden blood to make sure he at least wins the game.

I had no time to watch who would win that game of chess however due to the school bells singing their ringing. Some students quickened their paces while others resumed as they were. Most of the stationary ones began to move into motion and entered the building.

Except for those two chess players. I took one last look at them and they just sat there with no care in the world.

My super hearing picked up their brief mention of the school bell and mutual decision to stay behind and finish the game, even at the cost of being late for class.

I admired their dedication as it reminded me of my own very recent dedication, a dedication to something that my mother forbids me from committing myself to.


	2. Chapter 1: The Progeny Trinity

**The Progeny Trinity**

I sat by myself at the school cafeteria. I always chose to sit far away from people as I am not a very social person. I am the exact opposite of mom, where she is assertive, aggressive, short tempered and loud. I on the other hand am meek, withdrawn, quiet and tend to keep my frustrations to myself.

I began to eat my food and after three bites, I was joined by someone. I quickly looked up to see who it was before I could decide whether or not to inwardly sigh in disappointment at this social incursion.

Thankfully it was my two cousins, Beatrice and Brock.

My lips curled into a smile and they returned it.

"What's up, Betty?" Brock asked, his grin stretched across his face which made him look like a gentle blond giant. That was such a fitting demeanour for a son of Bubbles. Brock had a great father. Mike Believe was somebody who even I looked up to as a father figure.

Leave it to auntie Bubbles to be a good judge of character and find herself a good man. I never really knew my father as he had left when I was very young.

"Nothing new," I responded silently.

"Did you hear about one of the missing students?" Beatrice asked. She was always keeping her eyes and ears stretched as far as this city goes. The internet was Beatrice's domain and she absorbed its wisdom and insanity as one would expect from a daughter of Blossom and Dexter.

"Yes, I heard of it and mom said there's a spike in crime lately, so she'll work a bit longer today. She told me to go straight home after school," I said.

"And we both know that you won't," Beatrice said with a sly smirk.

"Nope," I said with a bit of guilt building up in my chest. It was my self-given duty to keep innocents safe and evil at bay.

My mom told me about her childhood and how she faced all kinds of odds with her sisters. My first villain encounter was when I was seven and witnessed Mojo Jojo go on a rampage in his giant mech and various automated killer drones downtown while mom was buying me ice cream.

She kicked his ass into next Tuesday. That was the day that inspired me to be like her, a beacon of hope for those who cannot defend themselves. But she wouldn't let me. She would always tell me that it was too dangerous and I could understand, my powers were weaker than hers after all.

I wouldn't let that obstacle get in my way, none of that stopped me and here I am at the age of sixteen doing my own superhero vigilante stuff under her radar.

"What have you found out about the crime rate rising, Beatrice?" I asked her. She and I both knew about that.

"Well, The Gangreen Gang and The Crowz have increased their activities in the lower sectors of Townsville. Betty, there are scary rumours coming from 'The Narrows' which are about an urban legend."

The Gangreen Gang has changed a lot since the days our moms were young. Now they're a big syndicate with many members joining with some going so far as to paint their skins green in order to mimic the founders. I also wasn't surprised to hear Beatrice say that about the Narrows because there was always scary shit coming from 'The Narrows' which is why even the cops rarely ventured into that place.

"What's going on in the Narrows?" Brock asked.

"Brock, have you heard of _Project Barracuda_?" Beatrice asked him.

"I can't say that I have," he responded.

"Well I don't blame you as it's some highly classified government army stuff. Basically, 'Project Barracuda' was an attempt to replicate the Professor's Powerpuff Girls experiment, or at least the accident that gave our moms their powers. This project involved Buttercup's DNA but I don't know much else about it and my dad's super computers couldn't dig up much."

If Dexter's computers couldn't dig it up, then I knew that this was some pretty shady stuff if the government were willing to bleach the hell out of their systems and wipe all of the data.

It honestly didn't surprise me that something like this was even attempted by the military-industrial complex. What did surprise me however, was how long it took for anyone else to try again after Professor Utonium.

Sure, Mojo Jojo attempted and one could say that he even succeeded with the Rowdyruff Boys, but what about afterwards? It baffled me that nobody else managed to make more. Maybe many have tried but failed just like Professor Dick Hardly?

The Powerpuff Girls were originally intended to just be normal girls made in Professor Utonium's lab from scratch. He designed every gene, coiled every helix, grew every cell and intended to cultivate his perfect three daughters from the Petri dish.

But an accidental spill of the highly unpredictable and hyper volatile Chemical-X mutagen forever changed the DNA within the growing cells alongside the lab chimpanzee who was exposed to a splash of it which enlarged his brain way beyond the holding capacity of his cranium and turned him into Mojo Jojo.

The Powerpuff Girls were born in artificial wombs within the Professor's laboratory. Seemingly normal at first except for larger eyes than is usual for a human. The Professor noticed a white dot in the middle of their iris, a unique anatomical feature that was responsible for giving their eyes the ability to view in another visual spectrum as well as zoom in on something. The eyes were larger for a reason, which was to harbour all of these unique anatomical and evolutionary advantages over the human eye.

The trio were artificial life forms. In medieval times they'd be known as a Homunculus, a being created through the use of alchemy; and what is science but another form of alchemy?

The Powerpuff genes were similar enough to allow the birth of children with humans and strong enough so that my cousins and I inherited most of our mother's traits such as the unique large eyes with white dots in the iris as well as the respective hair and eye colours. Also as was often the case with hybridisation, the results were quite unpredictable.

Beatrice was the weakest but had the biggest smarts which were mainly thanks to being raised by the dorkiest of parents and having the resources, motivation and encouragement to cultivate her mental faculties to grow.

Brock only had super strength and durability but he really struggled to shoot lasers out of his eyes and could not fly like Beatrice or myself. Maybe one day he might fly because we're still gaining new powers as we grow. I only learned how to shoot laser eye beams last year.

I am the toughest in terms of durability which I find quite ironic and amusing due to being the daughter of 'the toughest fighter' and all.

"You said something about someone going missing earlier, who was it?" I enquired as I remembered the missing student that Beatrice has mentioned.

"Roger," Beatrice said with a hint of dread in her voice.

"Do you know where he was last seen?" I asked her.

"He was last seen near McCracken Road by eyewitnesses. That's another scary area, probably more so than the Narrows because this isn't an urban legend."

"How come?" I asked Beatrice.

"Something's been killing people there and leaving empty lifeless husks behind."

My stomach sank a bit. I remembered when mom caught a cannibalistic serial killer known as the Townsville Ripper and Blossom made sure that the cannibal was locked away forever.

The Powerpuff Girls have changed the ways that they fought crime. As children, they were licensed vigilantes who were allowed by law to protect the city from giant monsters, villains and criminals of all kinds.

But as they grew, they chose career paths specifically designed to ensure society ran smoothly.

Blossom became a lawyer, using her smarts to protect the innocent and ensure that the guilty got what they deserved in a fair trial. The Ripper deserved no mercy and thus she was given none by the law.

Bubbles became a teacher in this very high school that my cousins and I attended. She used her friendly personality to bond with as many students and her multi-lingual special power to help with educating those who were struggling with English.

My mother stayed closest to the traditional and direct approach of tackling crime, she became a police officer and earned herself the nickname of 'Buttercop.'

With these women taking a more legal approach to fighting an ever dwindling crime, super heroes were henceforth seen as vigilantes and this was something that was no longer allowed in this increasingly safer city.

Which is why I kept my activities a secret in the wake of these unprecedented rising crime rates. I only started this last week and Beatrice has agreed to help. I used the fighting skills that my mother had taught me in case I ever needed to defend myself from the likes of a giant monster or the evil incarnate known as HIM.

I only stopped one crime so far, which was some random mugging at a street corner where the coward ran away after I let him shoot me in the eye with his handgun and enjoying the horror on his face as the bullet harmlessly bounced off of my eye. It did sting like hell though and it took every effort not to flinch which was totally worth it in making a good first impression not only to myself, but also to the person that I saved.

But that was just a minor thing compared to this. I knew of nothing that murdered and then left 'empty husks behind' as Beatrice so eloquently put it. I am new as fuck into this whole crime fighting thing and my superhero and gunshot virginity were just lost on last Friday.

"I'm gonna look into that," I said.

"Betty, don't do this. You could get hurt," Brock said with a low voice.

"I'll be fine, Brock. What could possibly be strong enough to hurt us? Our moms did these things ever since they were five," I reassured my cousin.

It was true, their powers manifested at the age of five and that's when the seemingly normal large eyed infants became known to the world as 'the Powerpuff Girls.'

Beatrice's, Brock's and my own powers manifested at much later ages. Mine at seven, three months before my eighth birthday. Brock's came at age six and Beatrice's at age twelve.

"If you say so," Brock said and we resumed eating as we've just realised that lunch time was nearing its end and our food was getting cold.


	3. Chapter 2: Finding Roger

**Finding Roger**

I flew across town and landed on the sidewalk of McCracken's Road. It was a rather well kept and tidy area. I always liked seeing things being well ordered.

But this was no time to pay attention to things other than the task at hand. I am looking for Roger as he is still missing. I walked down the path that he was reported to have taken.

My super senses activated and I saw the unseen and heard the unheard. The world morphed into unknowable shapes and colours before me. My mind was able to process and bring order to this chaos. The buildings reassembled before my eyes but the colours were different and the sounds were filtered until I stopped hearing the heartbeats and blood flowing in the capillaries of random civilians passing by and the voices in all the nearby buildings within three miles ranging from conversations to people having sex of varying degrees until only the inaudible frequencies that should aid my investigation remained.

I raised my head and took a deep breath through my nose. My sense of smell was as potent as my sight and hearing. Beatrice was nice enough to sneak into Roger's home after school and take his watch for me to sniff and then track that scent like a humanoid bloodhound.

But no canine nose matched the nose of a Powerpuff woman or her offspring.

It took one sniff for me to recognise the smell of Roger. I walked down the path, breathing through my nose and flaring my nostrils. I couldn't help but smile a little bit at how silly I felt until the severity of the situation smacked that grin off my face and set me down the path to seriousness.

After about half an hour of walking and sniffing and listening and watching, I finally found myself standing in front of a building. My eyes focused and the walls before me vanished and I saw inside the building; further focusing opened up more walls and ceilings until I saw what lay beyond the rooftop.

My eyes widened as I witnessed something in the shape of a man and I immediately knew that it was Roger. I zoomed in with my super vision despite the smell telling me that it was definitely him, and these were all corroborated by my focus on the man with my own eyes.

With one swift push from my powerful legs, I leapt to the rooftop and used my flight to nudge myself forward until I landed myself near Roger.

I knelt next to him. He lay on his front as his back was baked by the sun, his head propped to the side and the left part of his face was already suffering sunburns from the heating summer while the rest of his head was covered by the hood from his grey hoodie.

I couldn't help but feel sad. I never really knew Roger all that well, but he was one of those really nice guys who helped me in maths sometimes. My eyes watered as I soaked in the tragedy of the situation and my thoughts wandered towards his family and friends.

Poor Roger. I will see to it that this crime does not go unpunished. I grabbed my mobile phone from my right jean pocket and immediately began to dial the local constabulary. My fingers lightly tapped as my hands shook with nervousness and social anxiety but I brushed it all away as I placed the phone against my ear.

I made an anonymous call to report a body at the top of a twelve story block of flats near McCracken's Road and then I stood up and got to work. I used all of my senses to scan the area.

Infrared wasn't very useful as Roger was blended with the environment's background heat, his dead body baked by the sun matched the floor's heat as well.

I read on the news about how my mother used her senses to solve crimes. She wasn't really the detective type however, so most of the things she solved were quite obvious. Auntie Blossom usually saw things where none may find them and that's why she was so useful in court.

I was much more patient and attentive to detail than mom and this gave me all of the fuel that I needed for the task before me. It only took two minutes until one of my visual spectrums saw traces of something blue on Roger's cheek.

I took a closer look and bent down to use my fingers to pry back bits of his hood. The blue marks looked like fingers but they didn't make a full hand print. Perhaps the killer wore finger-less gloves which I found odd. Why would someone wear gloves exposing fingers and giving investigators all of the fingerprints needed?

I knelt next to Roger again and took a closer look at him in the colour spectrum. The blue marks were gone but he looked as if he had been aged by about a century. It was a detail that I had missed earlier due to the shock of finding him dead. Now that my mind was wrapped around that grim fact, I could see all of the wrinkles and the white hair as I pulled back his hoodie.

I looked in my super vision once more and saw more of the blue finger marks on his neck, having choked the life out of him.

My investigation was concluded for now and so I jumped off of the building and then flew home as fast as I could before my mom would get home and make sure that I never hear the end of it if she found out that I didn't get home straight away from school.

* * *

I looked at my laptop and there was my cousin Beatrice with her red hair and big pink eyes which were scanning her screen and not paying me much heed at the moment.

"From what you told me, Betty, it sounds like we might be dealing with something that kills by touch," Beatrice said.

"I gathered as much, do you think it drains the life force out of people? Roger didn't look a hundred when I saw him three days ago," I said without exaggerating a thing.

"The coroner's report matches those of a dozen victims within this week. These types of killings are spread all over Townsville, but the last few have happened in the McCracken's Road area. The majority of similar killings actually occurred in Citiesville some months ago," Beatrice informed me.

I absorbed the information and contemplated upon it until Beatrice caught my attention with another thing.

"Betty, this might be a connection. There was also a superhero in Citiesville who was found dead with no physical damage to his body other than looking severely dehydrated. The only difference being that he wasn't aged rapidly like Roger. This superhero was known as 'The Train' and he was able to run through any obstacle at incredible speeds. A CCTV camera captured something blue running through a thick brick wall and vanishing soon after The Train's reported time of death. You mentioned blue finger looking marks on Roger, right?"

"Yeah, but something doesn't really match the pattern here... How comes Roger aged while The Train didn't?"

"Maybe because he's a train and Roger isn't?" Beatrice humorously remarked.

"So you're telling me that a train got killed by Sonic the Hedgehog?"

We both began to laugh and I mentally slapped myself because I realised that we were joking about tragic incidents here.

"Sorry," I whispered.

"For what?" Beatrice asked.

"Nothing. I just thought we shouldn't really be joking at the fact that someone died."

"I doubt they care, Betty. The dead don't care."

I silently sighed but the chuckle fit came back to me at the image of Sonic just running through brick walls and slamming into an unstoppable train.

"I'll be seeing you in hell, Beatrice," I joked.

"Make sure you save a seat for me," she smiled and suddenly I heard my mom come home through the front door..

"Is that the devil?" Beatrice asked with half of her lips curled into a cheeky smile.

"Mom's home," I said as a rebellious and unwavering smile plastered across my face at her sense of humour and refused to back down when I pushed for a more serious facial expression. Beatrice and I exchanged our goodbyes before I closed the laptop and made my way downstairs.

"Hey, sweetheart, how was school?" she asked.

"It was good. One of the students went missing though," I said.

"I know, I am so sorry to hear that. The DNA results identified and confirmed him as Roger Daniels. He... was your friend, right?" mom said with softness and compassion in her usually assertive voice. She always spoke to me with tenderness as opposed to how she interacted with others.

"Sort of. I didn't know him that well, but he did help me in maths when I needed it. I can't imagine what his family are going through," I said and fought back some emerging emotions of my own, striving to keep my voice from shaking. The memories of that aged face staring blankly ahead has returned to haunt me and threatened to ravage my dreams tonight.

Buttercup reached out with both hands and touched my face, her hands squished my cheeks as she sought to comfort me.

"Don't worry, baby. I'll look after you," she said and then embraced me in her strong arms with the most maternal and gentlest of hugs.

And so my dreams were indeed ravaged by the face of Roger Daniels later that night. I was hopelessly paralysed and could do nothing but helplessly observe as a pair of black gloved hands with blue fingers sapped the life out of his screaming face from the shrouds of the darkest shadows.

"YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED ALL OF THIS!" his voice wailed with a haunting echo as the quality of his speech degraded with rapidly advancing age.

My dream shifted to many more people and I tried to scream but there was only silence as I watched those same blue fingers sap them of their lives. Ever growing shadows spread like the evilest of cancers until the sickness choked all that was good and pure.

The monstrosity gorged itself until all of Townsville was filled with dead husks and all of the bright light and colourful beauty was blighted by the crawling darkness. When the half-living creature had its fill, its hunger demanded more and so it moved onto the next city to keep its half-life from ceasing altogether. A parasite looking to usurp from a host, a vampire looking to feed, a disease looking to spread.

And so my eyes frantically shot wide open to the bright sunlight of the morning and my mind has uttered the name of the monster that it has christened.

'Half-Life.'


End file.
